Efficacy of a New Technique -"IN-REC-SUR-E"- in Preterm Neonates With Respiratory Distress Syndrome During Non Invasive Ventilation: a Randomized Controlled Trial

EFFICACY OF A NEW TECHNIQUE -"IN-REC-SUR-E"- IN PRETERM NEONATES WITH RESPIRATORY DISTRESS SYNDROME DURING NON INVASIVE VENTILATION: A RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL

BACKGROUND The initial stabilization on Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) and provision of rescue surfactant only when necessary is at least as beneficial and quite possibly preferred over the standard therapy of intubation of all infants at risk in the delivery room and subsequent support with mechanical ventilation (2-4). The percentage of CPAP failure in the newborns of 25-28 weeks' gestation is 45 % (30/66) in the Australian experience (5), higher than that reported by Ammari et al. (25 %) (6) and similar to that reported by De Jaegere et al. (50 %) (7) and in the COIN trial (46 %) (2). As a potential alternative, the INSURE (INtubate, SURfactant, Extubate) approach (8) is very attractive. Recently, several studies have investigated the effectiveness of the association between non-invasive ventilation and surfactant, administered by transient intubation (INSURE), showing that it is effective in preventing the need for mechanical ventilation. Although beneficial in clinical practice, the INSURE method cannot be universally applied to all preterm neonates with Respiratory Distress Syndrome (RDS) and is unsuccessful in a particular section of this population. The INSURE failure rate recently reported in preterm infants of different gestational age widely ranges from 19 % to 69 % (10, 11). Unfortunately, no randomized controlled trials have directly evaluated the efficacy of INSURE in extremely preterm neonates (<28 weeks gestation) (8). Nevertheless, the data of the "Sustained Lung Inflation (SLI) study" (14) recently conducted on infants with GA 25+0- 28+6 weeks showed that nasal CPAP failure and need for Mechanical Ventilation (MV) at 72 hours of life was 53 % in the SLI group and 65 % in the control group (only nasal CPAP). In this study surfactant was preferably administered with the INSURE approach at a Fraction of Inspired Oxygen (FiO2) threshold of 0.40 and then it could be reasonably argued that at least 50 % of 25-28 weeks' gestation infants, even if receiving a SLI maneuver and the INSURE treatment for CPAP failure, undergoes mechanical ventilation in the first 72 hours of life for unsuccessful INSURE. One of the possible mechanisms responsible for the unsuccessful INSURE, requiring subsequent re-intubation and mechanical ventilation is the inability of the preterm lung with RDS of achieving and maintaining an "optimal" Functional Residual Capacity (FRC). Prophylactic or early rescue surfactant administration before alveolar recruitment probably results in an uneven surfactant distribution to already open alveoli thus resulting in poor clinical response to the first surfactant treatment. We, therefore, seek to compare the application of a recruitment manoeuver - in High-Frequency Oscillatory Ventilation (HFOV) modality - just before the surfactant administration, followed by rapid extubation (INtubate-RECruited-SURfactant-Extubation: IN-REC-SUR-E) with INSURE alone in spontaneously breathing preterm infants requiring nasal CPAP as initial respiratory support and reaching pre-defined CPAP failure criteria, for evaluating its effectiveness in decreasing the need of MV and improving respiratory outcome.

Study design This will be an unblinded multi-center randomized trial of IN-REC-SUR-E vs. IN-SUR-E in infants born at 24+0-27+6 weeks' gestation.

Sample size The investigators hypothesized that a recruitment manoeuver (in HFOV modality) before surfactant administration might decrease of the need of subsequent mechanical ventilation during the first 72 hours of life from 50 % (2, 5, 7) to 30 %. The investigators calculated that 103 newborns must be enrolled in each group to detect this difference as statistically significant with 80 % power at 0.05 level.

Randomisation Infants at each unit will be block (1st block: gestational age from 24+0 to 25+6 weeks; 2nd block: gestational age from 26+0 to 27+6 weeks) randomly assigned to a treatment group using automatically generated sealed envelopes which will be prepared at Policlinico A. Gemelli Hospital in Rome and then distributed to participating centers. Permutated block randomization with 1:1 randomization between the two arms will be used.